The Hated Billionaire by Erica Frost

Chapter 7: Brett

I drove home, unable to stop thinking about Christina. I had so enjoyed talking to her. In that situation, after the meeting, she acted different. I was used to her being so distant, so cold, and I would never have expected her to be actually friendly to me. But she had been so nice!

And yes, I had to admit to myself that I had been staring at her the whole afternoon; watching her lovely face as she spoke, and letting my eyes wander down her gorgeous chest and back up. Yes, she had a lovely body, with those gorgeous curves, but it wouldn’t have got to me without her personality. It was her surprising warmth and her quick temper that made her so sexy.

“Hell…this is really silly.” I told myself as I looked into the mirror, giving myself a stern talking-to. I really wasn’t supposed to fall for an employee. It was something that I had never really safeguarded against, because it was something I had never thought would happen to me.

I went and made myself some tea. I sat down on the couch to drink it. I wished I could tell Teagan about how I felt about my employee, but I didn’t think it was something he’d understand. He’d either tell me to go for it, or tell me to forget about it.

And I didn’t really want to do either.

I drained my tea and tried to put Christina out of my mind.

“She would never even look at me.”

I remembered how she had suddenly tensed and turned away, practically running from me to get away. I still didn’t know what I’d said. I was probably making it a bit too clear how attracted I was, and that scared her.

I leaned back and looked up at the ceiling. I was tired, but not tired enough to go to bed. I walked over to the kitchen, reminding myself that I hadn’t eaten yet. I opened the freezer to find some pre-baked quiche. I bought them from a particular little boutique food store around the corner. I know what I like, and what I eat is something I am willing to spend quite a lot of money on.

I put that in the oven to heat and, after I had eaten, I went to go and take a shower. I usually take a shower twice a day, if I can. I like to clear away the stress of the day before I get some sleep. In the shower, I found my mind straying to Christina again. I imagined her lovely hand where my hand was, stroking between my thighs. Her fingers were beautiful – long and elegant, with short nails. I imagined her touching me, and I felt my eyes squeeze shut with the ache of desire I felt for her.

I turned up the shower, giving myself a thorough soaking. I was really being silly now. How was I supposed to look her in the eye if I was standing here feeling myself to thoughts of her?

I dried myself off and slipped into bed. I really had to do something about this. I needed to distract myself somehow. I could guess what Teagan would say – he would tell me I was just desperate because I hadn’t been with a woman in ages. Maybe he was right, but I didn’t think so. I didn’t just want somebody for the sake of wanting somebody. I felt something for Christina – an interest that I couldn’t simply turn off. I liked her.

If she had liked me, I would even ask her out, I thought – yes, I knew it was frowned on to date people from your company, but it certainly wasn’t impossible and I would be fine with it: If she was.

I rolled over and drew the covers up around my shoulders. I really should stop thinking about her – after all, I’d reached out and tried to be friendly, but she had definitely made her opinion clear. I couldn’t challenge that.

I drove to work after a good breakfast – I always believe in starting the day full of energy – and found myself wondering about the meeting that afternoon. I was a little late when I arrived – the traffic had been worse than I thought – and I hurried up the hallway to my office. I stopped, cursing, as I walked into a crate. My toe ached. I bent down and then, when I straightened up, after checking my toe was still attached, I found myself looking straight at Christina.

“Sorry,” I hissed. My toe was throbbing and I wished I could clear my head. It was hard to think when everything was so very painful. “I was just hurrying along, and I bumped into this…thing.” I gestured at the wooden crate – I didn’t want to let out the stream of curses that were neatly held back behind my teeth.

“It’s the new equipment. Sorry,” Christina said. She gestured at a delivery man who was standing next to us, his eyes stretched to big rounds as he watched us talking to each other. “It’s okay. Can you move it into that room, please?”

“Yes, ma’am. Immediately.”

I turned to Christina. I wasn’t sure what she thought. If she had any sense, she’d probably burst out laughing – after all, I must have looked funny, no matter how sore it was. Instead, she looked up at me, eyes wide.

“Can I get you something? You must be in pain.”

“Yeah, I am a bit.” I tried to grin. “It’s stupid, isn’t it? Toes always hurt so damn much. Sorry,” I added, realizing that I’d sworn.

She shrugged. “I’d say worse than that if it was my toe,” she said.

We shared a grin. I recalled the previous day, when we’d talked so happily, until she turned away like that and seemed to be almost afraid of me. I wished I knew what had happened. Now, I let her lead me into the printing-room. I sat down. It was a relief to be off my feet. My toe was still throbbing and I was tempted to see what had happened to it.

“You should see what happened,” Christina said, coming and standing opposite me. She looked down at my foot, a small frown lowering her brows.

“Maybe,” I said. I hesitated to undo my shoe with her there. I knew it was silly, but I was self-conscious. What if I had weird feet? I didn’t want her to judge me. I was wearing socks, though, and I guessed I could at least take off my shoe.

I untied my shoelaces and the relief was instant. I took off my shoe. She sat down opposite me. When I looked up, she was looking at my face.

“Does that feel better?” she asked.

I nodded. Suddenly, I was aware of the fact that I was sitting opposite a beautiful woman, in the printing-room, my shoe off and my sock-clad foot in my hand. The strangeness of the situation was overwhelming, but oddly, with her, it didn’t feel embarrassing. I grinned at her, feeling shy.

“I guess it was pretty dumb to walk into that thing, hey?”

“Not at all!” Christina said. “You have every reason not to expect a gigantic box in the middle of your hallway.”

I laughed. “Yeah, I guess so.” I frowned. “Your hallway, actually – it goes past your office.”

“It’s your company, Mr. Caden.”

I shrugged. “It is, yeah,” I said. Weirdly, I didn’t feel that comfortable with that, right now. I would rather have been the guy delivering stuff – at least then I could have honestly made a pass at Christina without anybody thinking I was using my influence to coerce her. And without me having to worry that I could do so, if I wanted to.

She was watching me. Her brown eyes examined mine and I didn’t think that she was angry with me anymore – I had wondered, after we had talked last night and she had hurried away so quickly, if she was mad with me. But now, all I could see in her eyes was sympathetic gentleness.

It was nice to see – I don’t see people give me that look very often, in fact I couldn’t think that anyone else had ever given me that look ever.

I let out a sigh.

“I guess I should get back to work,” Christina said. “Are you sure I can’t get you a painkiller or something?”

“It’s okay,” I said, hastily putting on my shoe. Luckily, I was wearing neutral gray socks. Nothing with any embarrassing pictures or slogans on them. “I don’t need anything. It is going off.”

“Good,” she nodded.

We looked at each other. She was looking at me with those beautiful dark eyes and I realized, again, that she was within easy reach of me and that I could so easily reach out and touch her. She smiled, her pale lips lifting in the sweetest grin. I felt my heart ache. Her hand rested on the chair beside her and, as I stood, I reached out and touched it.

“Thank you,” I said. “You helped me.”

“I didn’t, really,” Christina said honestly. “All I did was tell you to sit down and take your shoe off.”

I smiled. “You didn’t laugh, which really helped me.”

“I couldn’t have laughed when you were in pain,” she said.

“No.” I nodded. “That’s very nice of you.”

She shrugged awkwardly. I could see that her old discomfort was back and I could understand that – I felt on edge too. People were starting to come up the hallway, and someone else came in to get printing from the desk. I straightened up. My shoe was on; I just needed to tie it.

“Thanks for helping me,” I said softly as I went to the door. “I’ll see you later today.”

“See you later,” she whispered.

I went up the hallway and I had to admit that my heart was thumping. I felt happy, and a little dazed. I still couldn’t quite believe I had been sitting there so naturally, talking to Christina. I walked up to my office, passing my secretary, who called out to me.

“Mr. Camden? You have a meeting today at ten.”

“I know. Thanks for reminding me. I’ll be ready in a moment.”

I strode into my office and sat down. My toe still hurt, but I could barely recall the actual wound. I was lost in thoughts of Christina – her sweet face, her beautiful body encased in that gray blouse and slacks. I ached to draw her against me, to cover her soft mouth with kisses. I imagined how it would feel to kiss her, my tongue pushed between those soft lips.

“Mr. Caden? Telephone – it’s Mr. Rawlinson, from the board.”

“Put him through…I’ll talk to him now.”

I was still having trouble thinking about Mr. Rawlinson and the budget. I was thinking about Christina and her soft mouth, and how she would melt in my arms as I pressed her back onto the sheets…

“So, Brett. That new investment. You’ll be needing four hundred thousand from each of us?”

“Um, yeah,” I said. He had certainly brought me back to the present, in no uncertain way. I blinked, trying to think properly. “Yes, that’s right.”

“And you calculate return on investments is fifteen-fold in five years. Yeah?”

“Yes, that’s it.” I was lucky that I was good at remembering numbers. I had memorized all the pertinent values from the meeting yesterday; and in any case, I knew the numbers for this project very well.

“Sounds good. I just wanted to check it, because my gut tells me something different.”

“What?” I frowned. “Mr. Rawlinson, could you be a bit clearer on that? What does your gut tell you?”

“It tells me there’s something off in the expenditure. It’s not possible that it’s going to become profitable that quick. Not with what you were telling us yesterday. No…something’s off. I am assuming right now that someone screwed up. Am I right?”

“Um, possibly,” I said slowly. What else could I say? I tried to think. “I’m going to call a meeting with the finance guys later this afternoon anyway. I’ll discuss it then and can I call to inform you this evening?”

“I’d prefer it if you check it out now. That’s a lot of money, and if I’m right, your ROI is out by quite a lot. Can you go and talk to your finance guy?”

“Sure,” I said. I stood up, ready to do and do it. “I’ll see him right away.”

“Good. And tell me afterwards. I like you, Brett, and I don’t like to think that you’re trying to kid anybody.”

I felt sick. What had happened? I had checked those figures myself! I had checked them so many times. I didn’t understand what he meant – and I especially didn’t like the thought that board-members thought my aim was to extract cash from them on false premises.

I stood and went out to find my head of finance.

I strode through to his office, my sore foot utterly forgotten. I tapped at the door. He was talking to an employee, but he saw something in my posture and he turned to the guy, speaking softly.

“I think I need to chat with our CEO quickly. If you could come back in half an hour?”

“Sure,” the young man said. He looked at me, looked nervous and went out through the door. I went in and shut the door behind me.

“What the hell happened to the spreadsheets you sent me?” I asked him.

“Which spreadsheets?” His full-jawed face seemed calm. He was a big man, my head of finance – not in a soft way, but in a way that suggested he could give a serious punch. I liked him. I trusted him. But I was annoyed that a mistake had slipped through.

“The ones that calculate return on investments,” I managed to say somehow. I was furious. “Can you talk me through them? Show me how they work?”

“Sure,” he said. He gestured me to a seat behind his desk. I came over and sat down. He joined me at the computer; clicked on the spreadsheets, which were on the desktop, calling them up.

“This is the same file you sent me,” I asked. I wanted to be sure. He nodded.

“Yes, the same. Now, if you look here, this is the column where I work out the expenditure. In the first year, it’s given using these values, here…” He scrolled down to show me a separate table, where the evaluations for the different publications were written. I frowned as I read through them. None of it made sense. I would need hours to sit and work through all of that, and I didn’t have hours right now. I looked at him.

“This needs checking,” I said flatly. “Somebody has messed up here. Or, if they haven’t, I need a report as to how they haven’t. And I need it by the end of the week.”

“It’s only two days from now,” he said.

“Yes, I know,” I confirmed. “But I need that work done. The board is angry. Someone thinks we screwed up.”

“Who?” Burgess asked me. I ran a hand down my face.

“Why does it matter who it was?” I asked.

“If it was Rawlinson, you know he’s a pain in the…”

“It was Rawlinson, yeah, but it doesn’t matter who it was,” I said carefully. “And this is not a moment to be insulting members of the board, no matter how much we might want to. I want to as well, trust me. But there are other people listening.” I gestured at the door.

He sighed. “Yeah, I suppose. You can never be sure who’s listening around here. But come on, Brett. You don’t really think I did this on purpose, do you?”

“Of course not,” I said quickly. I didn’t think that. I had worked with Burgess for the last five years – since a little bit before that, actually, right back when I was establishing our company. He was trustworthy, of that I didn’t have any doubt. I sometimes found him quick-tempered and a bit too careless for my liking, but I had no cause to think he would actually lie to the board.

“Well, I’ll try and get you that report. We’re going to need the rest of the week, though. That much I can tell you. And if Rawlinson tries to get funny, you tell him that I’ll give him a report where he’s never had a report before.”

I had to smile. “I won’t pass that on, no. But I will inform him he will need patience.”

“You do that,” Burgess said. He raised a brow and I went to the door.

“Thank you, Burgess. I’ll go and talk to him immediately.”

He nodded and I went off up the hallway, going to my office. I sat for a moment and tried to compose myself – I was still a little shocked, if I was honest, by the accusation he had made. Rawlinson, that was. I had not planned what to do if someone accused me of cheating, because, to be honest, nobody had ever accused me of not being truthful.

“Mr. Rawlinson,” I greeted as he answered the phone. “This is Brett Caden. I just spoke with my finance officer, and he informs me that everything looks accurate to him. He is preparing a report, which I will issue to you and to the rest of the board – whoever is interested – on Friday.”

“Good. Good, Brett,” he said. “I am glad you’ll be doing that. I am still wondering how he worked that out – there’s no way those particular magazine titles could be as profitable as that.”

“Okay,” I said. I wasn’t going to comment or defend. “I think we should wait for the end of the week when the report arrives.”

“Yeah. We’ll wait for them. I’ll be very interested to read that.”

“Good,” I said.

I put the phone down. I was shaking with some emotion I didn’t understand. It was anger, I thought. And shock. I had never been accused of trying to deceive my board-members before. I couldn’t understand why Rawlinson had got this into his head. I went through to talk to my secretary.

“Caley, please don’t send me anybody or any calls right now. I will go to the meeting at two, but before then I need to be undisturbed. Is that good?”

“Yes, Mr. Caden. I’ll tell them you’re busy.”

“Thanks.”

I went into my office and locked the door. I really didn’t want to be disturbed right now. I needed time to clear my head and think. Oddly, I wished I could talk to Christina about it. She was in finance, so she wouldn’t be too bad to talk to anyway. And when I’d hurt my toe so badly, she had been so understanding.

I wished I could tell her about this situation with the board. I felt sure she would understand, but I couldn’t tell her because she was a senior executive and, if I could, I wanted to let as few people know about this as possible. Just myself and Burgess, and whoever would help him with the report. Those were the only people whom it was necessary to tell.

I leaned back in my chair and checked my emails, trying to focus on something other than that report and how important it was to convince the board of my intentions.